We meet Ekow Eshun, leading curator, writer and broadcaster to discuss his new book The Strangers. In the western imagination, a Black man is always a stranger. Outsider, foreigner, intruder, alien. One who remains associated with their origins irrespective of how far they have travelled from them. One who is not an individual in their own right but the representative of a type. What kind of performance is required for a person to survive this condition? And what happens beneath the mask? In ans...
Sep 26, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 23Ep. 3
We meet artist Megan Rooney to explore her solo exhibition at Kettles Yard, Cambridge. Titled 'Echoes & Hours', this is the first major solo exhibition in the UK of work by Megan Rooney (b. 1985, South Africa). Her paintings have an irresistible life and energy, renewing the potential of abstraction to embody the richness of the visual world. It is curated by Andrew Nairne and Amy Tobin. This spectacular show is in it's final weeks, running until 6th October 2024, and we strongly recommend v...
Sep 19, 2024•1 hr 30 min•Season 23Ep. 2
Talk Art returns for Season 23! We meet Culture-loving Rob Rinder MBE and Architecture-fan Rylan Clark as they follow in the footsteps of 19th century romantic poet Lord Byron, and other Grand Tourists, on the 200th anniversary of his death. We discuss Caravaggio, Murano glass blowing, Artemisia Gentileschi & her censored ‘Allegory of Inclination’ (1816) and what it was like to become nude life models themselves. We explore how they met the Venice-based drag/art collective House of Serenissi...
Sep 12, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 23Ep. 1
Talk Art Live! We meet artist Studio Lenca (Jose Campos) within his recent solo exhibition 'Leave to Remain' at Carl Freedman Gallery in Margate. ‘Leave to Remain’ is the official term used by the UK Home Office, meaning someone who is allowed to stay in the UK with restrictions and without permanent legal status. According to the latest data from the UNHCR, 70.8 million people around the world have been forced from their own homes. Among them are 25.9 million refugees, over half aged under 18. ...
Aug 15, 2024•50 min•Season 22Ep. 11
We meet Precious Okoyomon – poet, artist, and chef – stages sculptural topographies composed of living, growing, decaying, and dying materials, including rock, water, wildflowers, snails, and vines. For Okoyomon, nature is inseparable from the historical marks of colonisation and enslavement. In their work, plants like kudzu – a vine native to Asia that was first introduced by the US government to farms in Mississippi in 1876 as a means to fortify erosion of local soil, which had been degraded b...
Aug 08, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 22Ep. 10
We meet artist Puppies Puppies. Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo (b. 1989, Dallas, TX), widely known by the moniker Puppies Puppies, expands ideas around the readymade by imbuing ubiquitous and everyday objects, signifiers, and actions with a personal and political charge. Puppies Puppies works across sculpture, installation, and performance art. She has, for example, reconfigured antibacterial gel dispensers, toilet bowl liquid, the color green, as well as the acts of sleeping, peeing, and taking a pi...
Aug 01, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 22Ep. 9
We meet Es Devlin CBE to discuss her new multi-media work SURFACING commissioned by BMW and unveiled at Art Basel in Basel 2024. A pioneering combination of sustainable energy and movement in an installation of water, light, sound and dance. A dance collaboration and a series of mobile sound installations within a pilot fleet of BMW iX5 Hydrogen vehicles. In Hall 1.1 of the art fair Devlin created a booth displaying four works: Surfacing (2024), an illuminated cube of rain penetrated by a line o...
Jul 29, 2024•53 min•Season 22Ep. 8
We meet artist Jean Claracq to discuss painting, his recent shows with Galerie Sultana in Paris and Arles, plus what its like living and working from Marseille and its growing artistic community. Jean Claracq brings the past forward via savvy remarks on the culture industry of the 21st century. Claracq’s paintings exploit, in the most delicate and refined form, the language of advertisement and social media to construct desire, fascination, and lust. With eclectic references that range from medi...
Jul 25, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 22Ep. 7
We meet Dominique Fung (b.1987), a Canadian artist with ancestry in Hong Kong and Shanghai, whose practice explores the subliminal liminal territory in which tradition, memory and legacy seep through our collective subconsciousness. Through her interest in casting light on overlooked or forgotten stories and her use of specific historical artifacts she infuses with living qualities and complex non-linear narrative paths, she models a new, broader, alternative space of belonging. She lives and wo...
Jul 18, 2024•52 min•Season 22Ep. 6
We meet curator and writer Gemma Rolls-Bentley to discuss her debut book Queer Art , recorded in front of a live audience at the Turner Contemporary in Margate. With nearly 200 artworks selected by Gemma, this book mixes the high-brow with the low, gallery stalwarts with Instagram stars, and the racy with the fabulous. This is a unique celebration of queer life – a must-have for the LGBTQI+ community, art lovers and anyone interested in the culture surrounding queer identity. The twentieth centu...
Jul 11, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 22Ep. 5
We meet Mary McCartney, world renowned photographer, film-maker and sustainable food pioneer. As a leading British creative, her work covers multiple disciplines, but is always rooted in her passion for impactful storytelling. We meet at Claridges Art Space in London to explore her joint show 'Double Exposure' with photography legend David Bailey. Unfolding like a conversation between two friends, Double Exposure: David Bailey & Mary McCartney brings two era-defining British photographers in...
Jul 04, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Season 22Ep. 5
We meet artist Corbin Shaw, live from the Crossed Wires podcast festival in Sheffield's City Hall. Corbin Shaw (b. 1998) is a British artist based in East London, originally from Sheffield. Exploring the complex realm of masculinity and identity through the medium of textiles. Using his upbringing in a South Yorkshire ex-mining town Corbin investigate's masculinity and how it was defined to him growing up. Breaking stigmas and stereotypes through his re-imagination of masculine 'icons' and objec...
Jun 27, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 22Ep. 4
Talk Art Live, recorded at Apple Covent Garden. We meet Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem to celebrate her first new music in 3 years, the new single Big Man featuring Moonchild Sanelly. Recorded in front of a live audience of 400 art lovers, we explore her rise to fame over the past few years, what it was like playing the Sally Bowles lead in Cabaret on London's West End and her love of art and how artists continue to inspire her creative process while recording her third album. We discuss he...
Jun 20, 2024•57 min•Season 22Ep. 3
For his first exhibition in London in over 20 years, New York-based artist Jack Pierson presents a new series of works at Lisson Gallery that explores love, kinship, celebration, poetry, youth, and identity. Pierson diverted from the path of documentary photographers that he studied with in Boston, and was instead drawn to punk-influenced performativity, embracing non-linear, spontaneous compilations that prioritise the expression of individual freedoms over existing narratives. He has since, th...
Jun 13, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 22Ep. 2
We meet artist Nathanaëlle Herbelin to discuss her major solo show in Paris. A constant visitor to the Musée d’Orsay’s collections since childhood, Herbelin has been invited to put her canvases and sources of inspiration into perspective. An heiress to Les Nabis (active in Paris from 1888-1900), the artist brings their favorite subjects – daily life, domestic interiors and intimacy – up to date in resolutely contemporary compositions. The presentation of her work at the Musée d’Orsay is very muc...
Jun 06, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 22Ep. 1
We meet author/art critic Jennifer Higgie and Sotheby’s Chloe Stead to discuss the inspiring new exhibition ‘London: An Artistic Crossroads’ which has just opened at Sotheby’s New Bond Street and runs until 5th July 2024. #AD / this episode is presented by Sotheby’s. Sotheby's, in partnership with Art UK and twelve museums across the country, are staging a month-long exhibition, open to the public and free of charge, shining a spotlight on the UK as a centre of creative cross-pollination. The ex...
Jun 03, 2024•52 min•Season 21Ep. 12
We meet KAWS aka Brian Donnelly to discuss his three major institutional exhibitions all opening in 2024. The first show has just opened at The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh and is the first time that Donnelly's work has been aligned with Warhol. Followed by the Parrish Art Museum this summer, and The Drawing Center, set to open in Autumn. In celebration of its 30th anniversary, The Warhol presents KAWS + Warhol , the first exhibition to examine the dark themes present in the work of both artis...
May 30, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 21Ep. 11
We meet artist Shaqúelle Whyte to explore his current solo exhibition at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in London. Whyte imagines fictional environments in his paintings, creating an enigmatic atmosphere that contributes to his psychoanalytic approach. The painted medium is paramount for the artist whose broad, loosely rendered brushstrokes are mirrored in his expansive compositions, in which time and space expand and contract across the canvas. Although non-linear, narrative plays a central role in ...
May 23, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 21Ep. 10
#AD - New Talk Art special episode! We meet legendary art critic Louisa Buck for a tour of Cork Street Galleries, to visit galleries including Alison Jacques, Tiwani Contemporary, Frieze No.9 Cork St, Waddington Custot, Goodman Gallery, Stephen Friedman, Marianne Holtermann and Flowers Gallery. We discover their current exhibitions but also explore the history of this iconic art street in London’s W1. London Gallery Weekend, the biggest gallery weekend event in the world, returns for its fourth ...
May 20, 2024•58 min•Season 21Ep. 9
Talk Art exclusive! We meet Sir Elton John and David Furnish to discuss their epic, brand new exhibition Fragile Beauty. Opening this weekend, Saturday, 18 May 2024 at the V&A South Kensington. An unparalleled selection of the world's leading photographers, telling the story of modern and contemporary photography. Discover iconic images across subjects such as fashion, celebrity, reportage and the male body. This exclusive episode was recorded in person at the South of France home of Elton &...
May 16, 2024•1 hr 33 min•Season 21Ep. 8
We meet writer Oisín McKenna to discuss his debut novel Evenings and Weekends which is released today! We discuss Oisín‘s passion for spoken word and performance art and discover his early years inspired by artists like David Hoyle, Penny Arcade, Taylor Mac or Lucy McCormick. We learn how museums like the National Gallery, Dublin improved his life, the impact of his art teacher, and his love of the work of Caravaggio, Doris Salcedo, Oscar Wilde and Wolfgang Tillmans. We explore the relationship ...
May 09, 2024•55 min•Season 21Ep. 7
We meet artist Leilah Babirye to discuss her inspiring multidisciplinary practice, her major solo show at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and new sculptures in the Venice Biennale 2024. Transforming everyday materials into objects that address issues surrounding identity, sexuality and human rights, the artist fled her native Uganda to New York in 2015 after being publicly outed in a local newspaper. In spring 2018 Babirye was granted asylum with support from the African Services Committee and the NYC ...
May 02, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 21Ep. 6
New @TalkArt! We meet the PET SHOP BOYS to explore their new album NONETHELESS!!! Recorded in London’s Kings Cross, we chat to Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe about their history as the UK’s most successful pop duo, their mutual love of art, collaborations with artists throughout their 40 year career including Derek Jarman, Eric Watson, Wolfgang Tillmans, and most recently Tim Walker, plus we explore Neil’s interest in the Arts & Crafts movement, and for collecting & living with art. This fe...
Apr 25, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Season 21Ep. 5
Talk Art live at the Venice Biennale, presented by Burberry. Recorded at the St Regis Library, we meet leading artist Sir John Akomfrah CBE RA and Tarini Malik, the curator of the British pavilion 2024. The British Council is delighted to present Listening All Night To The Rain by John Akomfrah at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2024. The exhibition runs from 20 April to 24 November 2024. Exploring post-colonialism, environmental devastation and the politics of ae...
Apr 19, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 21Ep. 4
TALK ART EXCLUSIVE! We meet Sir Antony Gormley OBE RA to discuss his forthcoming solo show 'Aerial' at White Cube New York, USA and his epic new 'Time Horizon' public installation of 100 sculptures which is about to open at Houghton Hall, Norfolk, UK. We explore his entire career across this intimate, highly detailed, feature-length special episode recorded in person at his London studio. Antony Gormley is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate th...
Apr 11, 2024•1 hr 44 min•Season 21Ep. 3
We meet artist Brook Hsu. We discuss other worlds, the power of storytelling, the colour green, the drive to make paintings and making art at your own pace. BROOK HSU (b. 1987 Pullman, Washington) deploys and weaves the autobiographical and the mythopoetic into paintings using an array of materials, including ink, oil paint, industrial carpets, and off-cuts of ready-made lumber. The sources for Hsu’s imagery come from her own observations, sometimes arising from art history, film and literature....
Apr 04, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Season 21Ep. 2
Season 21!!! We are back with an icon of art, the one and only Judith Bernstein (b. 1942, Newark, New Jersey) to discuss almost 60 years of art making. Since graduating from Yale in 1967, Bernstein has developed a reputation as one of the most unwaveringly provocative artists of her generation. Steadfast in her cultural, political and social critique for over 50 years, she surged into art world prominence in the early 1970’s with her monumental charcoal drawings of penis-screw hybrids; early inc...
Mar 29, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 21Ep. 1
Talk Art Live! We meet Otamere Guobadia, a multidisciplinary writer, poet, and columnist whose work focuses on desire, art, adornment, queerness, and agency, within culture high, low, and popular. Recorded live in Margate @FortRoadHotel. Thanks to @TheMargateBookshop & @QuenchGallery. 💕🎙️ We discuss lyricism, queerness, love for the Women in our families and friendships, Yves Klein blue and how art and poetry are interconnected! Otamere’s work has appeared in British Vogue, i-D, Dazed, GQ,...
Mar 22, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 20Ep. 12
We meet artist Li Hei Di on the eve of their debut UK solo exhibition 700 Nights of Winter at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London. In new paintings, Li explores primal, sexual urges with their signature fluid application of paint. Balanced on a knife edge between abstraction and representation, paintings feature figures that swim in and out of view beneath diaphanous veils of paint; each layer offers a different world, or a portal to an altered oneiric space, guided by desire and emotion. Multiple...
Mar 15, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 20Ep. 11
We meet living LEGEND, the English sculptor, performance artist, jewellery-maker, portraitist and all-round cultural ICON... Andrew Logan!!!!! We learn about his friendships with Zandra Rhodes, Vivienne Westwood, Derek Jarman, Angela Flowers, Brian Eno and his recent collaboration with Stella McCartney for her Paris catwalk show. Logan (b. 1945) belongs to a unique school of English eccentrics. One of Britain’s principal sculptural artists, he challenges convention, mixes media and plays with ou...
Mar 08, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 20Ep. 10
